I’d been worried about him for a while now.
He wasn’t the same man that I’d met in the beginning, and I feared that everything was weighing him down. My problems. His problems. Everyone in the club’s problems.
And what was worse was that he’d been acting different since we’d gotten back from the baptism yesterday.
I couldn’t figure out why he’d completely disregarded everything I’d said.
It was as if he was hurting or something, and I was determined to get down to the bottom of it.
So when he said he had to go, taking out a six-pack of beer out of his fridge on the way, I followed him. He has taken some alone time since we have been together. We aren’t together all the time, but this seemed different than his usual.
And I didn’t follow him very well. And not easily, might I add.
Mostly because he was on a bike compared to my car.
He could slide through traffic like a slippery eel.
I, on the other hand, drove so slowly that I could barely keep up with him.
When we hit the highway forty-five minutes later, it got easier.
I stayed at least ten car lengths behind him at all times, because I knew he’d make me in a heartbeat if I didn’t.
The only reason I saw where he was going was that I could see him turn at least three intersections away.
So I followed him as best as I could, eyes scanning my surroundings.
Finally, I caught a glimpse of him turning into what I thought was a cemetery, but I couldn’t quite tell since it was so far away.
But my suspicions were confirmed a few minutes later when I pulled up behind his bike.
Silas was nowhere to be seen, though.
So I got out and started walking, saddened by the hundreds of graves that were in the graveyard.
It was an old one.
Some of the headstones I passed on the way there were from the 1800’s.
I’d walked perhaps a thousand yards or so, just topping the tip of a hill, when I saw him.
He was sitting on a camping seat, one of the ones that had three poles and folded out into a triangle.
He had a beer in his hand and his back to me.
So I saw the cut clearly on his back, the huge scary, wraith like woman with her weirdly colored eyes staring at me hauntingly.
Beyond curious, but knowing he wanted to be alone, I turned on my heels and left, giving him the privacy I knew he wanted.
Well…not privacy…just not me.
And that didn’t hurt as much as I thought it would.
But I did make a phone call.
“Hello?” The man on the other end of the line answered.
“Hey,” I said. “This is Sawyer.”
“I know,” the man said impatiently.
I looked at the phone to make sure I’d called who I thought I’d called, and was surprised to find that I did.
“Umm,” I said, hesitating now that he’d answered so tersely. “Your dad’s at a cemetery drinking a beer with a tombstone. Should I be worried?”
There was silence on the other end for a very long time before Sebastian finally cleared his throat.
“Which cemetery?” He asked finally.
I looked up at the sign I was standing under and said, “Bayou Road.”
His swift inhalation was audible over the phone line, and I started to worry.
“Should I go check on him?” I asked anxiously.
“No. Leave him alone. We’ll be there.”
I didn’t get a chance to ask who ‘we’ was, because he’d hung up on me before I could say anything otherwise.
It was another twenty minutes of me sitting on the hood of my car, staring up at the streetlight that was trying to decide if it wanted to turn on or not, when I heard them.
It sounded like hundreds of motorcycles, but was more like ten.
I sat up and looked behind me to where I could hear the noise coming from, and smiled when I saw six men.
They pulled up behind me, each of them wearing much the same as I’d seen Silas put on before leaving the house.
“Hey,” Sebastian said.
“Hey,” I replied back.
He gave me a long look. “What are you doing here?”
I blinked. “I, uhhh….followed him.”
“You followed him?”
That came from the big man.
Kettle this time.
“He’s not going to just let you follow him,” Trance said.
I shrugged. “Maybe he didn’t see me.”
The blonde one, Loki, with the scary scar across his throat snorted, bringing my attention to him.
Him I didn’t know as well yet, but I could tell he was laughing at me.
“What?” I asked.
He smiled, showing off a row of straight, white teeth.
“Nothing. Just find it funny that you think he didn’t know you were following him,” the man explained.
I shrugged. “Well, he hasn’t said anything, and I’ve been here for forty minutes now. I would think I’d at least get a glare or a ‘fuck off’ from him had he known I was here.”
That earned me a couple of hard stares, but it was that of his son that caught me by surprise.